Water & Wealth: Same, Same

The importance of this word is discussed in the 4th century BCE scripture, called the Prashna Upanishad.

But water and wealth are connected to goddesses all over the world.

Think Ma Ganga of the Ganges River, water nymphs; Anuket, Egyptian Goddess of the Overflow; Nantosuelta, a Celtic river Goddess; etc., etc.

Saraswati is a goddess of wisdom, too, and among goddesses of many traditions, water, wisdom and wealth are all woven together.

This reflects a longtime reality: the insight women have gained from an objective viewpoint outside public life helped guide families to the choices behind good fortune.

This is not unlike the social role priests, priestesses (and grandparents!) play. If you have a position outside the wheel of money-making and high-stakes social decisions, things can be evaluated more cooly. Your wisdom can go to the core of things.

Wise women are honored in both East and West.

A Representation of Sophia

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Sophia: Wealth and Wisdom

In the Western tradition, the feminine principle of wealth and wisdom is embodied in Sophia

Wisdom [sophia] has built her house;she has set up[a] its seven pillars.2 She has prepared her meat and mixed her wine;she has also set her table.3 She has sent out her servants, and she callsfrom the highest point of the city,4 “Let all who are simple come to my house!”To those who have no sense she says,5 “Come, eat my foodand drink the wine I have mixed.6 Leave your simple ways and you will live;walk in the way of insight.

Wisdom, wealth-making and “saving” roles (like a priest or priestess!) are all apparent here.

Saraswati rendered in a style common to folk art

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She is the Word

Saraswati also means “she who has speech,” because saras means “speech,” too.

Think of the water-like flow of thought, or the wisdom-flow of an experienced person’s conversation.

Saraswati’s identity, in this case, is partly related to her evolution from an earlier incarnation, Vac, (vac is the old Indo-European root of our word, “voice”).

In the Vedas, India’s first sacred texts (c. 1800–800 BCE), Vac was a speech goddess.

Vac was important because India’s main early ritual, the agni hotra, (“fire ritual”) depended on mantras being spoken precisely to make the ceremonies function in the magical way they were supposed to.

A Thai Representation of the Creator God, Lord Brahma

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The Male-Female Split

As the goddess of learning and the consort of Brahma, Saraswati represents a reversal of a common male-female duality in Hindu myth.

The active force in the universe appears as female in most iconography—whereas consciousness, which we associate with knowledge, is commonly depicted as male.

The earth goddess, Prakriti (also found in the Vedas), is an example of the more familiar duality.

The feminine Prakriti becomes the universal principle for nature and the relative world of change and action in later Samkhya philosophy.

Her “hundred forms” are those of language (because she’s reigns over speech).

Language, of course, is near-infinite in the number of things it can reference!

The Hindu goddesses (and most goddesses in general) rule over this idea of “lots-of-things” or, more to the point, they rule over fertility.

Large numbers, like sata, get connected to them!

Similarly, the lak in Lakshmi (The Goddess of Wealth) means “a thousand.” As a goddess of multiplicity, wealth, and fertility, Lakshmi is “She of the Thousands.”

The divergent Matsya Purana creation story of Saraswati—which comes a thousand years after the Vedas—says Saraswati is the daughterof Brahma! Nonetheless, because they are gods, and because they exist in the period before universal law appears and forbids incest—-they become loving partners—as in the stories above.

In this myth, Manu is known as “The First Man,” just like Purusha (there’s alot of this duplication in Indian myth).

Ironically, Manu is the lawgiver. His coming now prevents things like the incest that gave him birth!

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How Saraswati Belongs to the Gunas–the Primary Approaches to Life

We give this Goddess thing another turn when we relate the deities to the basic vibrations of life, called the gunas.

These also come from the Samkhya philosophy we talked about.

In Hinduism we have the trimurti, the three main forms of God—Shiva, Brahma, and Vishnu. Each of these male gods, along with their female consorts, is seen as sharing one of three gunic vibrations.

Saraswati, as Brahma’s partner, is associated with the the active, forceful, creative guna called rajas.

Think of Saraswati’s association with wealth, and her etymologies that connect her back to flow and fertility.

Kali, Shiva’s counterpart, is associated with the guna, tamas. It’s like yin. It represents slowness, groundedness, darkness, and also destruction.

Lakshmi (“She of the Thousands”), the consort of Vishnu, is associated with the guna, sattva. It is the balanced, luminous energy that some say represents rajas and tamas in balance (like the yang and yin that compose the balanced Tao in Chinese philosophy).

The river among the ancient Indus-Saraswati cities

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And Geography?

As a hint to her river goddess past, Saraswati is also the name given to a watercourse that used to flow between India and Pakistan.

In that region, archeologists have excavated the “Indus-Saraswati” culture.

It pre-dated the Vedic period, oriented to c. 3000–1500 BCE.

The oldest evidence of yoga has been found in artifacts from that civilization. The initial Pashupat, “Lord of the Animals” seal, that some say is the first representation of a yoga pose, was excavated there, dated to 2900 BCE.

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Her Visual Form

Saraswati wears white, which represents the purity of divine knowledge.

She sits on the lotus, which represents vijnana, or “higher knowledge.”

She has four arms, suggesting her power.

She holds a stringed instrument called the veena, symbolizing music and mantra.

The veena also stands for the divine vibration (called spanda) that lies behind everything in the universe.

In other hands, she holds a book, representing the Vedas’ sacred knowledge, and a crystal mala, which represents the power of meditation (and doubles as a symbol of the linguistic clarity of poetry).

Another arm holds a sacred water pot.

This harkens to the alternate meaning of her name as well as to the “flow” of the mind. It is tied to water as wealth. Esoterically, the liquid is associated with amrta—the fluid of immortality that is said to drip down from ajna (the third eye) to the throat, and to be cultivated by yogis through special practices.

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Her Sound Form

This Goddess’s mantra, Om Shreem Saraswati Namaha, makes use of a common four-part formula.

1.Om is the pranava, or “universal sound,” that hallows an intonation.

Standard chants begin with om to bless the words that follow and open the heart.

2.Shreemis the bija(seed) mantra that means “beauty.” It resonates within our gross and subtle bodies to purify them while harmonizing us with the universal rhythm we call rta.

3. Of course, now we know what “Saraswati” means!

4.Namaha, at the end of the mantra, functions as an intellectual statement and a vow.

When it closes a mantra, it suggests, “Now that this sound equation is launched, I let it go—I do not claim it for my clinging ego!”

The devotional art of chanting we call kirtan is now a dynamic companion to modern yoga, and posework’s artistic aspects have come to the fore, too. Hence, Saraswati takes her place as a yogic deity with fresh meaning for our new tradition. She represents art—and the art of yoga.